The restaurant was bright, elegant and comfortable. It was just to the right of the hall, opposite the conversation rooms, and, as Joachim explained, was used mainly by newly arrived guests who dined out of time, and byused by those who had visitors. But birthdays and forthcoming departures were also celebrated there, as well as favorable results from general medical examinations. Sometimes things get really busy in the restaurant, said Joachim; champagne is also served. Now there was no one in it but a single lady of about thirty, reading a book while humming to herself and tapping the tablecloth lightly with the middle finger of her left hand. When the young people were settled, she changed places to have her back to them. She was shy of people, Joachim explained quietly, and always ate with a book in the restaurant. They wanted to know that she had entered a pulmonary sanatorium as a very young girl and had not lived in the world since then.
“Well, then you’re still a young beginner compared to her at five months and will still be when you’ve got a year under your belt,” said Hans Castorp to his cousin; whereupon Joachim reached for the menu with that shrug of the shoulders that he had never had before.
They had taken the raised table by the window, the prettiest spot. They sat opposite each other by the cream-colored curtain, their faces glowing in the glow of the red-coated electric table lamp. Hans Castorp clasped his freshly washed hands and rubbed them together expectantly, as he used to do when he sat down at the table – perhaps because his ancestors had prayed before the soup. A friendly, palatable-speaking girl in a black dress with a white apron and a large face of an extremely healthy complexion served them, and to his great amusement Hans Castorp allowed himself to be instructedthat the waitresses are called “hall daughters” here. They ordered a bottle of Gruaud Larose from her, which Hans Castorp sent off again to have it tempered better. The food was excellent. There was asparagus soup, stuffed tomatoes, roasts with many ingredients, a particularly well-prepared sweet dish, a cheese platter and fruit. Hans Castorp ate very heavily, although his appetite did not prove as lively as he had thought. But he was used to eating a lot even when he wasn’t hungry, out of self-respect.
Joachim did not do much honor to the courts. He was sick of the kitchen, he said, they all were up here, and it was the custom to scold the food; because if you sit here forever and three days … On the other hand, he drank the wine with pleasure, even with a certain devotion, and, carefully avoiding overly emotional phrases, repeatedly expressed his satisfaction that someone was there with whom one could have a sensible conversation word could speak.
“Yes, it is brilliant that you have come!” he said, and his leisurely voice was moved. “I can say that it is quite an event for me. That’s a change – I mean, it’s a break, an articulation in the eternal, boundless monotony…”
“But the time must pass really quickly for you here,” said Hans Castorp.
“Fast and slow, as you wish,” answered Joachim. “It doesn’t pass at all, I want to tell you, it’s not time at all, and it’s not life either – no, it’s not that,” he said, shaking his head and reaching for the glass again.
Hans Castorp drank too, although his face was now burning like fire. But his body was still cold, and there was a special joyful and yet somewhat tormenting restlessness in his limbs. His words were too hasty, he often made mistakes and dismissed them with a dismissive gesture. Incidentally, Joachim was also in a lively mood, and their conversation went all the more freely and happily when the humming, throbbing lady suddenly got up and walked away. They gestured with their forks as they ate, made important faces, biting into their cheeks, laughed, nodded, shrugged their shoulders and hadn’t swallowed properly before they went on talking. Joachim wanted to hear from Hamburg and had brought the conversation to the planned regulation of the Elbe.
“Epochal!” said Hans Castorp. “Epochal for the development of our shipping – not to be overestimated. We’re budgeting fifty million as an immediate one-time expense for this and you can be assured we know exactly what we’re doing.”
Incidentally, despite all the importance he attached to the regulation of the Elbe, he jumped off the subject and demanded that Joachim tell him more about life “up here” and about the guests, which he did willingly, since Joachim was happy to facilitate and communicate. He had to repeat that about the corpses being sent down the bobsleigh run, and once again expressly assure him that it was based on the truth. Since Hans Castorp was seized with laughter again, he laughed too, which he seemed to enjoy heartily, and let others laughHear things to fuel the exuberance. A lady was sitting with him at the table, by the name of Frau Stöhr, quite ill by the way, a musician’s wife from Cannstatt – she was the most uneducated thing that had ever happened to him. “Disinfect” she says – but in all seriousness. And she calls the assistant Krokowski the “Fomulus”. You have to swallow that now without making a face. She is also addicted to gossip, like most people up here, and another lady, Frau Iltis, says she wears a “sterilette”. “She calls it sterile – that’s priceless!” And half lying down, thrown back against the armrests of their chairs, they laughed so hard that their bodies trembled and they got hiccups almost simultaneously.
In between, Joachim felt sad and thought of his lot.
“Yes, here we sit and laugh,” he said, his face aching, and interrupted at times by the tremors of his diaphragm; “And there’s no telling when I’ll be leaving here, because when Behrens says: Another six months, then it’s close, you have to be prepared for more. But it’s hard, tell me yourself if it’s not sad for me. By then I was already taken, and next month I could do my officer’s examination. And now I’m hanging around here with the thermometer in my mouth and counting the blunders made by this uneducated Frau Stöhr and wasting time. A year plays such a role in our age, it brings with it so many changes and advancements in life below. And I must stagnate here like a waterhole – yes, quite like a putrid pool,
Oddly enough, Hans Castorp only answered this by asking whether one could actually get Porter here, and when his cousin looked at him with some astonishment, he saw that he was about to fall asleep – actually he was already asleep.
“But you’re sleeping!” said Joachim. “Come on, it’s time for bed for both of us.”
“There is no time at all,” said Hans Castorp with a heavy tongue. But he went along anyway, stooping a bit and stiff-legged, like a person who is literally being pulled to the ground by tiredness – but pulled himself together violently when he heard Joachim say in the dimly lit hall:
“There sits Krokowski. I think I have to introduce you quickly.”
dr Krokowski sat in the light, by the fireplace in one conversation room, right by the open sliding door, reading a newspaper. He got up when the young people approached him and Joachim said in a military posture:
“May I introduce you to my cousin Castorp from Hamburg, Doctor. He’s only just arrived.”
dr Krokowski greeted the new housemate with a certain cheerful, stout, and encouraging heartiness, as if to indicate that face to face with him any embarrassment was superfluous and that only cheerful trust was in place. He was about thirty-five years old, broad-shouldered, fat, considerably shorter than the two who stood before him, so that he had to tilt his head back to see their faces–and exceedingly pale, of a translucent, even phosphorescent pallor, which was heightened by the dark glow of his eyes, the blacknesshis eyebrows and his fairly long, double-tipped beard, which already showed a few white threads. He wore a black, double-breasted, somewhat worn-out jacket suit, black, openwork, sandal-like shoes, thick, gray woolen socks, and a soft, overhanging collar such as Hans Castorp had only seen on a photographer in Danzig and which corresponded to the appearance of Dr. Krokowskis indeed gave it a studio-like character. Smiling warmly so that the yellowish teeth were visible in his beard, he shook the young man’s hand, saying in a baritone voice and a somewhat foreign drawl:
“You are welcome, Mr. Castorp! Would you like to settle in quickly and feel comfortable in our midst. You come to us as a patient, if I may ask?”
It was touching to see how Hans Castorp worked to behave and to get his sleepiness under control. He was annoyed at being in such bad shape and, with the suspicious self-confidence of young people, saw the assistant’s smile and encouraging demeanor as signs of indulgent mockery. He replied by talking about the three weeks, also mentioning his exams and adding that, thank God, he was quite healthy.
“Really?” asked Dr. Krokowski, jerking his head forward as if teasingly and intensifying his smile… “But then you are a highly study-worthy phenomenon! I’ve never met a completely healthy person. What kind of exam did you take, if the question is allowed?”
“I’m an engineer, Doctor,” Hans Castorp replied with modest dignity.
“Ah, Engineer!” And Dr. Krokowski’s smile retreated, as it were, losing some of its strength and cordiality for the moment. “That’s brave. And you will not seek any medical treatment here, either physical or psychological?”
“No, thank you a thousand times!” said Hans Castorp and almost took a step back.
Then the smile broke Dr. Krokowskis again emerged victorious, and shaking the young man’s hand again, he cried out in a loud voice:
“Well, sleep well then, Mr. Castorp – feeling full of your impeccable health! Sleep well and goodbye!” With that he dismissed the young people and sat down again at his newspaper.
The elevator was unattended, so they walked the stairs, silent and a little confused by their encounter with Dr. Krokowski. Joachim accompanied Hans Castorp to number thirty-four, where the limping man had properly delivered the newcomer’s luggage, and they chatted for another quarter of an hour while Hans Castorp unpacked his bedclothes and toiletries and smoked a thick, mild cigarette. He didn’t get around to the cigar anymore today, which struck him as strange and extraordinary.
“He looks very important,” he said, puffing out inhaled smoke as he spoke. “He’s pale as wax. But with his chaussure, listen, it’s awful there. Gray wool socks and then these sandals. Was he actually offended at the end?”
“He’s a bit touchy,” admitted Joachim. “You shouldn’t have so brusquely rejected medical treatment, at least not psychological one. He doesn’t like it when you evade it. He’s also not particularly open to me because I don’t confide in him enough. But every now and then I tell him a dream so he has something to dissect.”
“Well, then I just alienated him,” said Hans Castorp morosely; for it made him dissatisfied with himself to have offended someone, and so fatigue came upon him with renewed strength.
“Good night,” he said. “I fall over.”
“I’ll get you for breakfast at eight,” Joachim said and left.
Hans Castorp only did casual night toileting. Sleep overcame him as soon as he had put out the bedside lamp, but he woke up again because he remembered that someone had died in this bed the day before yesterday. “It won’t have been the first time,” he said to himself, as if that would calm him down. “It’s just a deathbed, an ordinary deathbed.” And he fell asleep.
But as soon as he fell asleep he began to dream and dreamed almost continuously until the next morning. The main thing he saw was Joachim Ziemssen in a strangely contorted position on a sled down a sloping track. He was as phosphorescently pale as Dr. Krokowski, and in front sat the Herrenreiter, who looked very vague, like someone you only heard coughing, and steered. “It doesn’t really matter to us, – to us up here,” said the contorted Joachim, and then it was he, not the Herrenreiter, who was like that coughed horribly pulpy. Hans Castorp had to weep bitterly over this and realized that he had to run to the pharmacy to get cold cream . But along the way sat Frau Iltis with a pointed snout and holding something in her hand that was apparently supposed to be her “sterilet” but was nothing more than a safety razor. That made Hans Castorp laugh again, and so he became between tossed about in various moods until morning broke through his half-open balcony door and woke him up.